Marketing in the news

I was flipping through marketing sites and I came across, first a title, that caught my attention.

GOODBYE BOTS, HELLO 'PEOPLE MARKETING'

The article title itself this was a successful pitch to me.  I am a firm believer that the most POWERFUL marketing tool you can ever have, is people.  Real honest people, from your team members to your customers, I believe they are the driving force of truly powerful marketing.  So, in search of confirmation bias, I persisted into the article.

This was an article done by Drew Neisser at Ad Age. In this article, he broke down an interview he had with the chief marketing officer of Mercer, Jeanniey Mullen, about a recent ad campaign they used at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year(2018).  This campaign sought to address the effects of "people marketing" in the age of digital marketing.

With users having their attention pulled in a lot of directions they often have little time to devote to a marketing ad.  Many corporations and agencies, in the age of digital, suffer from a Fear of Missing out or a Fear of Falling Behind that drives many of their social media and online activities. This pushes industries to rely on things faster than the users to interrupt them and get their attention such as 'bots', a series of algorithms and targeted ads that push on the individual user based on their natural habits.

Mullen knew from her previous digital companies how to deliver with a low budget and common technology.  She knew that in this digital age human beings still wanted something real. This opportunity was in the hands of Mercer's 21,000 employees. It was up to the 800 volunteer members of the team, dubbed Davos Squad to create "authentic, inspirational and relatable" content.

First off, Mercer is a professional services firm specializing in risk, strategy, and people. This company has been working for more than 80 years with a set of strong values that I believe showed through in this campaign and will hold true in a changing future where technology is becoming more prevalent in marketing.  Mercer offers up both their core values in this event:

Image of Mercer Corp website (About Mercer)

What Mercer did was take those values and put them right in people's faces.  The company created content, focused on the services they offer, which was spread by the Davos Squad through social media with authentic interactions with clients and partners.  The Davos Squad, with their matching hats, gloves, and scarves would engage participants at the WEF with that content that was important to the squad member, share on social media and create conversations using that content as an "icebreaker'.  They got to choose what they shared, fueling that engagement with a personal passion and drive for the service.

The biggest advantage here was that each conversation wasn't a "sales pitch", it was a real person giving voice to the service. This campaign worked with virtually no money and didn't' spend anything on the media.  A "no risk, unknown reward" strategy made their company the 4th highest share of voice (brand exposure) for the entire WEF.

I can't infer any way that I would have been able to change or improve on this idea from the interview and article alone.  The Devos Squad has since taken the services each member advocated and moved onto specializing in those teams further empowering the staff and clients.  The campaign built trust and lasting positive effects on both which, to me, makes it a resounding success.





https://adage.com/article/opinion/goodbye-bots-people-marketing/314968/